Stateline Victoria

Convicted husband killer Heather Osland released from prison

GAVIN FANG, REPORTER: She was sent to gaol with the condemnation of Victoria's Supreme Court, who labelled her crime a premeditated murder. But today Heather Osland emerged from behind the gates of Tarrengower Prison as a symbol of the fight for justice for abused women.

HEATHER OSLAND: It is very hard to believe that this day has finally arrived, and it's been a very long and difficult time and I'm - of having lived and survived two nightmares. The first nightmare lasted 13 and a half years of living and surviving the fear of Frank's violence and abuse. The second nightmare has been of prison, which has lasted nine and a half years.

REPORTER: The body of Frank Osland was discovered buried in bushland in January last year. The court heard Marjorie Heather Osland ...

GAVIN FANG: In July 1991, Heather Osland dug a shallow grave, drugged her husband, Frank, and then, after her son David had struck him over the head with a pipe, the pair buried the body. Police claim part of Heather Osland's motivation was money.

DET-SGT TONY THATCHER, HOMICIDE SQUAD: Heather told us that Frank's grave was dug the same day he was killed and that, if Frank came home and was in a bad mood, they would actually carry out their plan to kill him and bury him in that grave. There's an allegation that Frank was going to leave Victoria and travel to Queensland, and that Heather had been asked whether she wanted to accompany him and if she declined that they were going to sell all their assets and divide them equally, and the allegation was that Heather didn't want to do that.

GAVIN FANG: Frank Osland's body lay undiscovered for four years until police re-opened his missing persons file. It was apparently common knowledge in Bendigo that he'd been killed, and the investigation led to Heather, his wife of 14 years. A decade on, the officers who investigated the crime still believe Heather Osland was a calculating killer.

DET-SGT TONY THATCHER: There's evidence that she plotted and carried out a cold-blooded killing of her husband, and it was also alleged that she had attempted to plot the bashing of her son for informing the police of that murder. As well as Heather's confession, there was another witness that told us that he had been asked by Heather to kill Frank some time before the actual killing was carried out.

GAVIN FANG: But Heather Osland's supporters paint a vastly different picture. They say the real story is how the victim of prolonged violent physical and sexual abuse took a life to save her own.

CHRISTA MOMOT, FRIEND: Heather genuinely believed that Frank would kill her, and essentially they dug a hole with which - yes, Frank would be killed and put in that hole. They had made the decision that they would defend themselves and they would kill Frank Osland so that essentially they could live. And I feel that that is the context that people really should look at, rather than just think one day Heather made up her mind to say this would happen, regardless of the context. It's not the case.

GAVIN FANG: Since being gaoled, Heather Osland has detailed the abuse she says she suffered. The repeated sexual assaults included anal rape, and she was bashed, suffocated and threatened with razor blades. Police say they collected no evidence to back those claims.

DET-SGT TONY THATCHER: In her police interview, Heather didn't complain of systematic physical or sexual abuse, and certainly there was no corroboration of that allegation by doctors, witnesses or anybody else.

GAVIN FANG: But Osland's supporters argue differently.

MARY CROOKS, VICTORIAN WOMEN'S TRUST: It was prolonged, it was extreme abuse. It's well documented. There were no fantasies or fairytales in Heather's litany of abuse. So where I part company with the people who are uneasy about the seeming premeditation of it is that, if you've been living your life and with your children day after day fearful of your life and the life of your children, that's the primary issue, not whether she dug a hole.

SUPPORTER: We're just heading to the High Court.

GAVIN FANG: Driven by a belief that Heather Osland suffered an injustice, her supporters have spent the past decade battling to overturn the conviction. In her name, they travelled to Canberra seven years ago for a High Court challenge. They argued the Victorian Supreme Court had delivered inconsistent verdicts by convicting Heather Osland but freeing her son David on the basis that he acted to defend both of them. The challenge was ultimately unsuccessful, with the court ruling that the laws of self-defence and provocation weren't applicable in Heather Osland's case. An application for a pardon in 2001 also failed. Heather Osland's supporters claim her case is a classic example of where the laws of self-defence failed and, while the 59-year-old is now free, the campaign to change the laws goes on.

MARY CROOKS: Never for a moment have we accepted that killing is fine, it's not, and it's not the answer, but you have to be able to appreciate the circumstances in which a woman in this case was party to the killing of her husband.

GAVIN FANG: A reform of the laws is in the wings. Earlier this year, the Law Reform Commission handed the government a raft of recommended changes based on the findings of a three-year investigation. The commission chair, Marcia Neave, says a key proposal is to allow self-defence to be argued when the threat to a person's life is considered inevitable. Under current law, that threat must be immediate.

MARCIA NEAVE, LAW REFORM COMMISSION: If you genuinely believe that you are at risk of being very seriously injured or killed, because of a past history of violence, you kill, then in that situation you should be guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.

GAVIN FANG: The Law Reform Commission also wants more evidence about the extent of abuse to be admitted in court.

MARCIA NEAVE: Most women who are the victims of violence don't report it. They might tell a neighbour or they might tell a family member, but it's often hard to establish that history of violence because they don't tell anyone about it. So we want to broaden out the rules so that both the evidence about their situation is admissible, but also so that expert evidence about how people deal with violence, deal with family violence situations, what the typical response is, can be heard by a jury.

GAVIN FANG: Heather Osland tried to leave her husband eight times before the day she killed him. For her crime she lost nine years of freedom. But today, because of the work of her supporters, in the eyes of many her reputation has been rehabilitated.

HEATHER OSLAND: I'd like to say thank you to my family, friends and hundreds of supporters who have understood the terror and the fear that I lived and always believed that David and I acted in self-defence to save our lives. The legal system must change, and I understand there are current laws under way so that women who find themselves in a similar situation as mine will not have to endure what my family and I have had to endure.